Dunc went in first. Pulling his Harrier into a tight turn, he steadied up to check his aim, then fired. He targeted a building that some of the Taliban had entered just a few seconds before. Although he knew he wasn’t likely to do them or the buildings any serious damage, he figured the rockets might make them think twice about coming outside again.
As he unleashed the first salvo he was reminded just how tough the traditional mud-walled Afghan dwellings and compound walls were. High-velocity armour-piercing rounds that were capable of unzipping a tank seemed to just bounce off these solid old structures, leaving hardly more than a little dent.
Although Dunc and Nath could see the ANA patrol approaching in the distance, they knew they would take quite a while to get to the compound. In the meantime, once the Taliban spotted where three escaped ANA soldiers had taken refuge, they would slaughter them. They also knew that just two Harrier pilots were never going to be able take out all the Taliban. There were just too many, they were too spread out in too many different parts of the compound and the two of them had a limited number of rockets.
They decided to fire small salvoes – half a dozen or so CRV-7s with each attack – in repeated runs, hitting the building where they could see the Taliban hiding, and trying to keep them away from the three escapees. But it seemed unlikely that they could hold them off until the rest of the patrol caught up, and even then the ANA would be heavily outnumbered.
‘Talk about a bit of luck,’ Nath said afterwards. ‘Just as we’d fired the last of our CRV-7s, an Apache attack chopper pitched up, and that altered the odds dramatically, because he could bring his more accurate weapons to bear. That was a hell of a relief.’
The upshot was that the three ANA soldiers made it safely to a coalition checkpoint, largely because of the cool and considered actions by the two Harrier pilots, who had kept the Taliban far enough away to allow them to make good their escape. And although the CRV-7s had exploded very close to the Afghans, the two pilots had aimed them so accurately that none of the men was injured.
14
Another day, another dollar. I turned on to the end of the runway at Kandahar, the surface shimmering in the heat and making it look almost as if the far end was under water, and pushed the throttle fully forward, releasing the brakes moments later.
The noise of the Pegasus engine rose to a shrill scream as the Harrier leapt forward, pushing me back into the seat. I concentrated on keeping the aircraft straight – though with a runway the width of Kandahar’s you’d need to be seriously incompetent to run off the edge – and checking my instruments. I lifted off and retracted the gear, got the wheels in the well, but kept the aircraft low, watching the speed increasing and steadily reducing flap, until I approached the far end of the runway, where the huge whale-like shape of the UN Mi-24 Halo had become a familiar and comforting sight.
Only then did I pull back on the control column and point the Harrier’s nose up into the sky. With the sudden change of direction the ‘g’ loaded up. My legs were squeezed by the air bladders as my speed jeans inflated to prevent the loss of blood pressure in my brain.
As I climbed I turned on to my pre-planned vector and continued my tactical departure. All the way up to medium level I was alternating my attention between the Harrier’s instrumentation – particularly the engine-monitoring systems – and the mirrors. No coalition aircraft had ever been shot down on departure from Kandahar Airfield, as far as I knew, and I was determined not to be the first. So I watched the mirrors constantly for the telltale pinprick of smoke and flame that might indicate the launch of a SAM.
Once above 20,000 feet I relaxed, levelled at my cruising altitude and watched the airborne TACAN that showed me that my wing-man, Bernard, was closing up on me, 1,000 feet below. A couple of minutes later he called visual and we joined up as a pair.
Then we ran through our checks to make sure the Harriers’ weapons systems were working properly.
I uncaged the targeting pod, designated a waypoint on the ground and pointed the pod at it. The pod locked on to the exact feature I’d selected, which proved that the aircraft systems and the pod were working in sync. I selected another point and fired the laser at it to check that system as well. We also cross-checked our equipment, so that when I fired my laser, Bernard confirmed that his systems were detecting the reflected energy.
‘Recoil Four Five, Four Six, got it. Terminate the laser.’
I stopped firing my laser. Bernard turned his on and called: ‘Laser fires.’
He aimed his laser at the same target I’d picked, and I set up my laser receiving system to ensure I was able to detect the reflected energy.
‘Roger, happy, terminate.’
Once we’d done the mutual flare check and the radio and laser pod checks, internally I ran through my own checklist and, reaching down to the distinctive brown and white pattern of the Late Arm switch in the left-hand side of the cockpit, switched it to live. Some people have a different preference, but I like to have my Late Arm on all the time I’m airborne. I don’t want to have to remember it each time I select a weapon. And I know that if I have just selected a weapon it probably means I’m about to drop it because I am in a war zone. And if you forget to switch your Late Arm on, you won’t be able to drop it. Simple as that. And embarrassing.
So, from the moment I’m at altitude, I’m ready.
We did a final visual check to ensure that our expendable systems were working, and that we were ready for the mission, and headed off into the badlands.
Our two Harriers were, as usual, carrying a mix of weapons distributed across eleven weapons stations on the wings and fuselage. A GR7 ‘loaded for bear’, as the Americans say, will carry about 3,000lb of ordnance usually split between four of the eight wing pylons. And on this sortie Bernard’s jet was equipped with two 1,000lb Paveways – these are the GPS- and laser-guided bombs – which actually weigh about 1,300lb each with all their associated kit fitted. On other stations were two external fuel tanks and a target designation pod.
Under my wings I was carrying a pair of 540lb bombs, one set for impact and the other for airburst, plus two CRV-7 rocket pods. I also carried a big fuel tank under each wing and a targeting pod under my Harrier’s belly. On top of this, briefed to fly a tactical reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering sortie, we both had reconnaissance pods slung from the centreline station.
Recce is essential in any combat. Without knowledge of where the enemy is located and what they’re doing, any military force is effectively blind. So we frequently got airborne carrying camera pods and, in the absence of any activity that required our intervention, we’d be tasked with photographing a particular area where it was known or believed that the Taliban might be located. It was a low-intensity, but absolutely vital, task.
But we’d hardly got started on our briefed photographic runs before we were re-tasked.
‘Recoil Four Five, Crowbar,’ a distant voice crackled over the radio. ‘TIC India Bravo declared.’
The controller followed this with a position, and the callsign and frequency of the unit that had requested urgent assistance.
I immediately identified the location on the map display on my left-hand TV screen, and we altered course and increased speed. At around 400 knots and heading straight towards the mountains north of Kandahar, I dialled in the frequency and called up the unit’s radio operator.
‘Jaguar One Five, this is Recoil Four Five.’
‘Recoil Four Five, Jaguar One Five, roger. Ready for fighter check-in.’ The man’s voice, even over the filtering effect of the secure radio link, sounded tense with fear and apprehension.
I quickly passed him all our details and finished with our current position. ‘Estimate minutes four to your overhead, request SITREP.’
‘Recoil Four Five, Jaguar One Five, roger. We’ve just had an IED strike, one man down. There’s a rescue chopper coming in but it’ll be at least thirty-five to forty minutes before he gets out here.’ There was a br
ief pause, filled with static. ‘Please hurry.’
The American JTAC sounded terrified, as if he expected to be massacred by the Taliban at any moment. And when we heard the full SITREP, we realized why.
The mountains north of Kandahar were one of the principal hideouts of the Taliban in winter. They go up there to regroup and recover from the punishment they’ve had inflicted on them during the summer, especially August and September.
The unit we had been re-tasked to assist was a US patrol that was returning to Kandahar after what had already been an eleven-day sortie. They were only about forty miles out, but they still expected that it would take them at least two days to get back. As well as being limited to travelling about twenty miles a day by the difficult terrain, they had to clear their way through areas where contact with the Taliban was likely, so extreme caution was needed.
From the air, it was easy to see the problem. Nobody wanted to go through the choke points, because they were also the obvious sites for an ambush. Particularly dangerous were the wadis. They were ideal for vehicular movement because the surface was firm and fairly flat, but patrols never went down them unless it was unavoidable. Visibility from a wadi was severely restricted. The river bed was of course always lower than the surrounding terrain and so you couldn’t see over the banks, which made them ideal spots for an ambush. Instead vehicles would always drive along the much more rugged and difficult ground along the sides of the river valleys, wherever possible avoiding the tracks made by other vehicles, just in case the Taliban had decided to position an IED on what looked like a regular route.
That was a regular tactic employed by the insurgents. If they could identify a route that was in frequent use by coalition troops, they would conceal either a mine or, typically, a pressure-plate IED, buried under the vehicle tracks or sometimes just beside them. And a wadi crossing was a prime location for this kind of device.
The problem facing troops was that there might only be one point where it was possible to get from one side to the other. Often the sides of the wadi were steep, almost vertical and completely impassable to vehicles. Patrols always had to pick a spot where both slopes were gentle enough to allow their vehicles to drive down one side and up the other. The most critical vehicles were the heavy supply trucks, often driven by locally recruited nationals, because they hadn’t got the engine power or the climbing ability to tackle really difficult terrain. And so the reality was that there might only be a single location along a stretch of a mile or more of a wadi where a crossing was possible at all.
From the aircraft, turning hard directly over the wadi as we arrived on the scene and looked straight down, we could see exactly what had happened. Tracks snaked away in all directions from both sides, but they all came together at a single location, the only viable crossing point in the whole length of the wadi. And in the middle of the river bed was a wrecked Humvee, burning fiercely.
It looked to me as if the Americans had been sensibly cautious. Instead of simply following the other tracks straight across the wadi, which is where the Taliban would be most likely to have positioned an IED, the driver of the Humvee had crossed slightly to one side of the obvious crossing point, and in doing so had hit the device. Ironically, if the Humvee had simply followed the existing tracks, the vehicle would have missed it altogether.
The IED had stopped the vehicle dead, and seriously injured one of the crew members. The medevac helicopter was on its way out to pick up the wounded man and take him to the medical centre at Kandahar, but until that happened the patrol had no option but to stay in its present position. And that location was far from ideal from a defensive point of view. They were low down in the wadi, surrounded by high ground on all sides, and their real worry was that an IED strike was normally the precursor to an all-out attack by the Taliban. The stress and tension in the radio operator’s voice showed that clearly enough – he sounded terrified.
The moment the device had detonated, the patrol spread out into battle positions as quickly as they could, but they were right in the middle of a classic Taliban killing ground and for the moment they couldn’t move away from it. They were stuck down by the wadi crossing, unable to reposition because of their injured man, and also because they would have to blow up the Humvee to completely destroy it before they left. This was essential to ensure that none of the sensitive and classified equipment and information it contained could fall into the hands of the Taliban.
They had taken up positions on the highest ground they could find, about 500 yards from the Humvee, but because they were still down in the wadi they had higher ground on both sides and so only limited visibility. And every man in the patrol knew that there could be hundreds of heavily armed Taliban fighters lurking behind the river hills – mounds formed by a combination of water and wind – that surrounded them. They were expecting at any moment to come under fire from heavy machine-guns positioned on the high ground either side of them and probably to be facing hordes of Taliban attacking from concealed positions within the wadi itself. And, against those kinds of odds, they knew their chances of survival were slim, at best.
No wonder they were nervous.
‘Four Six, Four Five. Stay at twenty and watch the outer perimeter. I’ll go down and check out the rest.’
‘Roger.’
I throttled back and pointed the nose of the Harrier towards the ground. The first thing we had to do was eliminate any blind spots – not difficult from the air – and then expand the safe perimeter around the troops.
Dropping down to about 7,000 feet, I began to fly a circle around the wadi crossing point. I trimmed the aircraft so that I could almost fly it hands off, put on the altitude hold and started checking the area below me.
I had found that just about the single most useful device in the Harrier’s cockpit was the set of gyro-stabilized binoculars. These were easy to use and allowed me to survey a considerable area very quickly. They were especially valuable in a confused situation, where there were many potential targets to check. Once I’d identified a possible target I used the Harrier’s targeting pod, a very high-fidelity sensor, to examine the location through the optics on the flat screen in the cockpit, and to refine the coordinates. The equipment wasn’t actually designed for this task, but all of the squadron pilots had achieved considerable success with it.
Some non-aviators imagine that modern sensors have taken a lot of the skill out of identifying targets, but the reality is rather different. There’s no denying that the sensors are highly sophisticated pieces of equipment, but for optimum and efficient employment the pilot must first locate the target, or at least its approximate position, and then slew the sensor on to it: the aircraft needs to know what it’s pointing at. If the pilot can’t do this, the search and acquisition of a target is still possible, but it can take a hell of a long time.
Using the wrecked Humvee as my datum point, I began an immediate visual search of the wadi and the surrounding area, moving steadily outwards from the patrol’s position and remaining in constant radio contact with the JTAC on the ground.
Almost at once I spotted a couple of areas that I was unhappy with, where it looked to me as if insurgents could have concealed themselves and their heavy weapons.
‘One Five, Four Five. Two suspect positions. First, from the Humvee, bearing one seven five, range about 900 yards. There’s an outcropping with vegetation behind it. Second location. Bearing two three five, range one click. A tumble of rocks.’
‘Four Five, One Five, roger. We’ll check them out.’
I flew lower still, watching as the armoured Humvees headed out to check each spot, followed cautiously by heavily armed troops, and continued my detailed scan of the whole area.
‘Recoil Four Five, Jaguar One Five, that’s a negative on the first location. Standing by for the second.’ The voice paused for a few seconds, then spoke again. ‘And the second’s also negative.’
Even then, I could quite clearly hear the tension in his voice easi
ng. The first two possible hiding places for Taliban fighters had proved to be harmless and, so far, nobody had shot at them. Was the IED strike just a freak incident?
High above me, Bernard was reporting no signs of hostile activity. From his higher vantage point he could cover a much greater area, but he could see neither vehicles nor people on the ground.
I identified another half a dozen possible ambush sites in and near the wadi, and relayed the coordinates to the JTAC for investigation, but in every case they found no enemy forces. Each movement outwards from the wadi steadily increased the perimeter around the patrol’s position, and it soon became clear that there were no Taliban in the near vicinity.
As the perimeter widened, the blatant fear in the radio operator’s voice lessened markedly. It was clear that the IED strike had been a one-off and that they were not about to be attacked by the Taliban.
The next problem the patrol faced was getting away from the wadi once the medevac chopper had picked up the wounded soldier, and again the presence of the Harriers proved to be crucial.
Beyond the wadi there was an Afghan village that the patrol needed to pass through, and a number of other wadi crossings they would have to use that also had to be checked. We had to be totally certain that there were no Taliban or other insurgents positioning IEDs or setting up ambushes anywhere along the route the American troops were going to follow.
Bernard and I were immediately suspicious of several different activities that we could see. One of our problems was that although the politicians may describe what’s happening in Afghanistan as a ‘police action’, a ‘peacekeeping exercise’ or even ‘reconstruction’, the reality is that at the moment it’s all-out war, with allied forces battling an enemy that is ready to fight to the very end. So any activity by people on the ground could well be hostile in intent.
But at the same time, of course, not every Afghan is either a Talib or a Taliban supporter. Most of them are just regular citizens going about their normal daily activities. So what we saw on the ground below us was always subject to at least two different interpretations. But what we were looking at from our Harriers certainly appeared peculiar, if not suspicious.
Joint Force Harrier Page 13
